Murmurings about Ed Miliband after 'total disaster' in Scotland

Ed Miliband on his way to voting in the AV referendum on Thursday. Photograph: Rebecca Naden/PA

There is no doubt that Nick Clegg emerges from this week's round of elections with the deepest wounds.

But the deputy prime minister faces no leadership crisis. This became clear in the early hours of Friday morning when Evan Harris, the former Liberal Democrat MP who is guardian of the party's grassroots interests, made clear there is goodwill towards Clegg.

Ed Miliband, on the other hand, faces the opposite problem. He has not suffered a humiliating personal defeat as Clegg has in the AV referendum. But, unlike Clegg, the Labour leader is facing murmurings at senior levels of his party about his leadership.

There appears to be little criticism that Miliband is on the losing side of the AV referendum. Miliband may have been responsible for inserting a commitment to the referendum in the Labour manifesto for last year's general election. But he had no hand in calling this referendum which was the key Tory concession in the coalition negotiations.

The murmurings about Miliband have been prompted by what is described as Labour's "total disaster" in Scotland. Senior Labour figures are aghast at the SNP's success in achieving something that eluded Labour even when it dominated the landscape in Scotland – winning an overall majority at Holyrood.

This is what one Labour source said:

It was a total disaster at all the key levels of policy, organisation, personnel and message. Where did one million voters go?

There is an acknowledgment that Labour's failure in Scotland, which has prompted Miliband to launch a wide ranging review, was caused by reasons which go deeper than his leadership of the party. The SNP ran a presidential campaign around the dynamic Alex Salmond. Voters understood Labour's central proposition – that a force is needed to oppose the coalition at Westminster. They just decided that the SNP, rather than Labour, is the more effective force.

But there are concerns that Labour's failure in a presidential campaign in Scotland could be repeated throughout Britain as Miliband struggles against David Cameron. These fears were fuelled by the strong Tory performance in the English local elections. The party could well have seen a major loss of seats because it did extremely well when the same set of seats were last contested in 2007. Instead the Tories experienced a modest drop in their vote and gained some seats.

Labour scored some successes in England as it gained Gravesham and North Warwickshire. But there are concerns that Labour's success was mainly at the expense of the Liberal Democrats and does not show a breakthrough into crucial areas of the south.

The unease about Miliband will be voiced with care. But expect talk about fighting the sort of complacency demonstrated in the Commons last week by Kelvin Hopkins, the MP for Luton North, who told Cameron that he was bound to lose the next election.

But Hopkins will not be the real target. This is what one Labour figure said:

Don't let anyone tell you it is not really bad.

9.00pm UPDATE

It is important to say that Ed Miliband was working hard today to show he is not complacent about the challenges ahead. This is what he said during a trip to Gravesham:

Our victory here is both a sign of our progress and a symbol of our task ahead. To all those people who voted Labour yesterday, I thank you for your trust. To all those who did not, I know we have to work to regain your trust.

A Labour source said that the party's achievements should not be diminished. The party increased its share in the English local elections by nearly ten percentage points compared with the 29% it secured in last year's general election, its second worst result since 1918. The 29% figure applied to the whole of Britain, however. The source said:

Labour has picked itself off the floor and is back on its feet. As Ed made clear repeatedly today the results in England and Wales are both a sign of how far we have come in a short time and how far there is still to go.